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How predictable.

Which is great for me, really.

“Quem tenet Aurora mendax cognomine litus,” I read out the first line. Not well, but well enough.

I repeat it under my breath, thinking fast.

A land on which, or maybe is, the coast of the dawn, a lie of a name… roughly something like that. I purse my lips. Could be something about a falsehood?

Coast of the dawn. That was definitely part of this particular society’s schtick, from what I’ve found so far.

I peer up, my flashlight shining eerily on the second line of text.

“Et media nox tus domus sinistra freti.” My mouth twists to the side.

I don’t think I said that right.

Something about a midnight sea? Sinister again, which is both left and evil, because the Romans had real strange thoughts about left and right.

I shouldn’t have had the cock wine. Whatever.

“Try again, genius,” I tell myself. “We’re not letting that fucker win.”

I widen my stance, staring up at the bob of my little baseball cap flashlight, trying to ignore the nastiness all around me.

This is important. I can feel it in my bones.

Or maybe I just really need to pee.

I clear my throat and try my best impression of my first Latin teacher, from high school. She would have done this like a Shakespearean actor on stage.

“Quem tenet Aurora mendax cognomine litus, / et media noctus domus, sinistra freti,” I boom out.

Then screech, because ahead of me, something begins to grate, stone on stone.

The water ripples around my ankles, the entire tunnel shaking. A brick overhead dislodges, and I screech again as it plunks into the receding water next to me.

“Holy shit,” I say on an exhale, almost sobbing with excitement. “I fucking found it.”

Cautiously, even though I want to run, I slowly make my way under the Latin sign, filming the murals that illuminate scenes of war, gorgeous paintings of weddings and funerals and murders, an entire history in chipping paint.

I have goosebumps everywhere.

I can’t believe I found it.

And somehow, I knew I would.

I keep walking, stunned into reverent silence by the ancient art telling me all about this secret society, enough art that this, by itself, would be an entire dissertation.

And I’m recording it all.

And I’m the first person to see this in centuries.

A hot tear rolls down my cheek, and I’m so busy making sure I’m getting the murals beside me that I nearly trip over the track in the tunnel.

“There you are.” I feel sick with glee, awed, and completely overwhelmed.

A quick check of the wall where the mural ends shows me that I was right, there was a door here, and somehow, me reciting the Latin triggered it.